CVE-2021-3603

Description

PHPMailer 6.4.1 and earlier contain a vulnerability that can result in untrusted code being called (if such code is injected into the host project's scope by other means). If the $patternselect parameter to validateAddress() is set to 'php' (the default, defined by PHPMailer::$validator), and the global namespace contains a function called php, it will be called in preference to the built-in validator of the same name. Mitigated in PHPMailer 6.5.0 by denying the use of simple strings as validator function names.

Read the notes from the security team

Status

Show unmaintained releases

Package	Ubuntu Release	Status
libphp-phpmailer	25.10 questing	Not affected
	25.04 plucky	Not affected
	24.10 oracular	Not affected
	24.04 LTS noble	Not affected
	23.10 mantic	Not affected
	23.04 lunar	Not affected
	22.10 kinetic	Not affected
	22.04 LTS jammy	Fixed 6.2.0-2ubuntu0.1~esm1
	21.10 impish	Ignored end of life
	21.04 hirsute	Ignored end of life
	20.10 groovy	Ignored end of life
	20.04 LTS focal	Fixed 6.0.6-0.1ubuntu0.1~esm1
	18.04 LTS bionic	Not affected
	16.04 LTS xenial	Not affected
	14.04 LTS trusty	Not in release

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Notes

ccdm94

the vulnerable code section seems to have been introduced by commit 77c0bc8d (v.5.2.15). For this reason, bionic and earlier are not vulnerable.

Patch details

For informational purposes only. We recommend not to cherry-pick updates. How can I get the fixes?

Package	Patch details
libphp-phpmailer	Upstream: 45f3c18

Severity score breakdown

Parameter	Value
Base score	8.1 · High
Attack vector	Network
Attack complexity	High
Privileges required	None
User interaction	None
Scope	Unchanged
Confidentiality	High
Integrity impact	High
Availability impact	High
Vector	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

References

Related Ubuntu Security Notices (USN)

USN-5956-1
PHPMailer vulnerabilities
15 March 2023

Cvss 3 Severity Score